a different kind of cold
by 10millionpeople
Summary: Bucky's ten trigger words can be traced to ten specific memories, none of them particularly good. Sometimes forgetting isn't the hardest part.


**A/N:** So, my timeline might be a little fucked up, and I'm pretty sure some of Bucky's trigger words really are nonsense/mean nothing, and I'm totally sure my explanation isn't at all what happened to his brain, but a girl can dream, right? This was an exercise in indulgence. I like to think that all of Bucky's pressure points are Steve or Steve-related. Just let me live, Marvel, please, let it end.

This is a little more like a character study than an actual fic. These are just vignettes. Apologies if this idea has been explored before—I tried to flush this out as soon as I saw "Civil War," but I'm a slow writer and this is running on two months of work…

There's a pretty obvious nod to "The Thirteen Letters" (of the "Not Easily Conquered" series by dropdeaddream and WhatAreFears) in here, so if you've read that series, I'm sure you'll catch it. If you _haven't_ read that series, YOU GOTTA. Like right now. Like please, I'm begging you, don't read this fic, _read that fic._

Final note: A million thanks to Soph who edited this and brainstormed with me in Cracker Barrel and took me to see "Civil War" three times. Without you this would just be a scrap doc on my laptop.

—

 **желание** **•** __ _ **longing**_

24.

The first time it happened, Bucky felt like he'd been frozen for his entire life and just warmed up enough to move, just took his first breath of air.

It was just after supper. They had eaten white beans over toast. It was a normal night, nothing special that Bucky could place.

Maybe it happened because the air was a warmer after such a cold winter, so they had the windows up and a summery breeze was blowing in; maybe because they hadn't paid the electrical bill yet and the lights had been cut during the day, so they lit the living room with candles. Maybe it happened because they were sitting on the little couch in the living room, listening to the battery radio Bucky had splurged on last year.

Steve was upright, tucked into one corner of the couch with his sketchpad and a pencil. Bucky was dozing with his head resting on Steve's thigh, his body stretched out longways, legs dangling over the couch's other end. It was the kind of peacefulness that didn't feel fragile, that felt indestructible.

Eyes closed, Bucky felt Steve run a finger down the slope of his nose. It was usual, this kind of casual intimacy between them, but there was something rigid in Steve's touch, something hesitant. Bucky kept up his sleepy facade and tried to breathe evenly. Steve's finger ran from his nose, down across his philtrum, and then softly over the dip of Bucky's upper lip.

Involuntarily, Bucky sucked in a breath, eyes flying open. Steve gasped like he was eleven and his ma had just caught him stealing candy from the little sweetshop on Bedford. All it took was a quick glance at Steve's sketchpad, now exposed, to see why.

Steve had sketched Bucky before, of course he had, but never like this: With soft strokes and gentle highlights, Bucky's face slack with almost-sleep and his head lolled back on Steve's leg.

"It's just—" Steve started, sputtering. "The candlelight, Buck, and I just—"

"Stevie," Bucky whispered, because there was no way in hell Bucky was letting Steve get away with thinking he'd done a bad thing. Aiming for levity, he joked, "If you were going for realistic then I think ya might be losing your touch, 'cause there's no way I'm that pretty." Steve didn't laugh, his face solemn. He didn't say anything for a while and they stayed like that, staring at each other, both afraid to look away.

"A'course you are, Buck." Steve's voice was kinda choked, like Bucky knew it got the day before a bad cold hit. But this—well, he was sure this didn't have anything to do with that kind of illness.

One of Steve's hands crept across Bucky's jawbone experimentally. When Bucky leaned into it, Steve spoke again. "'Course you are."

Bing Crosby crooned over the little radio. _"Do you think I'll remember how you looked when you smiled?"_ As Bucky laid a hand over Steve's and leaned up, he thought about all the times he had tried to make peace with the unattainability of this.

He closed his eyes and saw a high school boy, shirt ripped and blood pouring from his nose, slumped over in an alleyway. He saw Steve reading the newspaper, silhouetted against early morning light. He saw Sarah Rogers, her golden eyes staring up at him from a hospital bed, looking maybe, finally, at peace.

Steve's breath on his nose brought Bucky back to the present. That was all the past, anyway; they had time later to atone for it—well, they had the whole rest of their lives, even, if Bucky had any say in the matter.

The angle was weird, Steve looked right terrified, and Bucky's neck was already getting strained, but then their lips finally met and every other thought was pushed out of Bucky's head except for Steve's name. It was absolutely perfect.

" _Only forever, that's puttin' it mild…"_

The real crisis came right after Bucky pulled away. Here was his friend—his _best friend_ —whom he had been pining for since the beginning of time, and Bucky had just kissed him. _Kissed_ him.

The worst part, Bucky thought, was that Steve was mirroring his panicked look. Reassuring Steve as much as he was reassuring himself, Bucky sat up and leaned over Steve, crowding his space, framing Steve's face with his hands.

Bucky kissed him again, deep and languid, and Steve made a small whimpering noise. They kept at this, over and over—countless, insistent presses of lips, each meeting the other like they had been waiting their entire lives.

Vaguely aware he was speaking between kisses, Bucky heard himself say, "You don't _know_ , Stevie," and Steve's reply: "I do, I do."

"How long?" Bucky asked before he could stop himself. Steve pulled back, his face lit by the candles around them, his lips swollen.

His answer came immediately. "Since forever."

The next morning, Bucky woke up in the wrong bed, curled around Steve's back like a question mark. It was early and he had to go work down at the shipyard, but he was warm, so warm, and the way the sun hit Steve's hair—makin' it all luminous and golden—reminded Bucky of the crust of an apple pie, Steve's favorite, which they hadn't been able to afford in years.

Maybe, Bucky thought, he could save up this week and instead of going out on Saturday like they usually did, he'd take Steve to that bakery a couple blocks down and they'd buy a pie.

Bucky sighed heavily and dropped a kiss on the back of Steve's neck before finally getting up. It was easy, this, and Bucky could imagine waking up exactly so, for the whole rest of his life.

Later that day, when Steve got home from art class, Bucky had already heard the news. Steve walked in, took one look at Bucky's face, and his face fell, too.

"What is it, Buck?" he asked.

"Stevie…"

After Bucky told Steve, they didn't speak or touch each other for the rest of the night. There were more important things to worry about now, and they could revisit this later, maybe after the war. They'd waited for each other this long—maybe this meant that later, Steve would want to stay. With Bucky. Always with Bucky, like Bucky wanted, always with Steve.

Hearts burdened for their country, for themselves, for each other, they went to sleep in their separate beds like the previous night hadn't happened at all.

It never happened again.

—

 **ржa** **вый •** _ **rusted**_

15.

" _Jesus,_ Stevie, why's this always happen?" It was a good thing Bucky had put on some muscle pretty recently, not that Steve was all that heavy, but literally carrying him for almost a mile from school to his home was a pain.

"Doesn't happen that often," Steve grumbled from his place on Bucky's back. And boy, didn't they both know good and well _that_ was a bold-faced lie.

Bucky had Steve's legs around his waist so he could hook his arms behind Steve's bony knees. Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky's neck and they must have looked like a pair, then, blood dripping off of Steve like he'd took a swim in it. It was staining all of Bucky's clothes now, too, but he didn't mind much. He was more worried about the punk on his back. (So, _so_ worried—not that it showed. Much.)

Bucky didn't think he'd ever been happier that his family had first-floor space. When they got to the apartment complex, he fumbled around in his pocket for the key without letting Steve down. Already he was starting to gasp for breath, and Bucky knew the wounds he had hurt far more than he was letting on. Bucky knew they always did.

"Our mas' are gonna go off the deep end when they learn we skipped half of school," Steve said when Bucky brought him into the bathroom and sat him down on the toilet lid.

Bucky laughed. "No, pal, they're gonna go off the deep end when they learn you got into the worst fistfight of your _life_ because'a some bird." There was a pause. "Like, a literal bird. You got beat up defending a _pigeon._ "

Steve frowned. "They were terrorizing, it, Buck. It had a broken wing. It couldn't go anywhere."

Bucky sighed because he knew Steve sympathized with all disabled creatures, for good reason. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of terror and unable to do anything about it. But with all Steve's heroic stunts, Bucky wished he would keep just a little of that protective nature for himself.

While Steve was getting undressed—because this was a common thing, now, Bucky cleaning Steve up after skirmishes, and they had a system—Bucky heated a pot of water on the stove and got a washrag out from under the sink. He came back into the bathroom to find Steve stripped to his boxers, already standing in the tub.

"You get the first aid kit?" Steve asked, and Bucky's lips quirked.

"It's already behind the mirror, pal. We just used it last week." Steve blushed deeply. Bucky made his way over, sitting on the edge of the sub with his legs spread so Steve could stand between them. He put the pot in the tub for easy access, careful to place it far enough away that Steve wouldn't accidentally step in it if he moved. The last thing they needed was burns on the kid's body, on top of everything else.

Bucky soaked the washrag in the hot water and made sure it was cool enough before he started cleaning the dried blood off Steve. In the hour since Bucky pulled Steve out of that fight, most of the cuts had stopped bleeding except for the ones on his face and hairline.

Bucky made a motion for Steve to duck his head, and when he obliged, Bucky pressed the hot rag to the cuts there that were bleeding the most. "'s the only way to stop this gushing, pal," Bucky said apologetically.

Steve hissed at the contact but didn't dare complain. Weakness, and all that. Bucky was used to it.

Try as Steve did to keep up the tough guy act, there was always a point in the cleaning up when he got all appreciative and borderline teary, like he didn't expect Bucky to do this for him every time.

This time, Bucky was cleaning around a particularly bad scrape in the crook of Steve's left arm. Steve's voice got real soft—so soft Bucky had to close his eyes against it. "Really, thank you, Buck. You didn't have to do this." Bucky's answer was immediate.

"'Course I did. Who else would clean up your punk ass?" And miraculously, it made Steve smile.

The thing was, odds were Steve was gonna die on him one of these days, done in by his weak lungs or irregular heart or lack of self-preservation. Odds were eventually, Bucky was gonna have to watch Steve leave. It hurt more than he was ready to confront. Felt like dying himself, just thinking about it.

But for right now, Bucky did the only thing he could: run the washcloth lightly over Steve's knees skinned from the gravel lot, the deep fingernail scratches down his neck, the scrapes on his face where he'd taken a fateful of rock. He had bruises all across his torso the size of countries on that big map in the geography classroom. Bucky smoothed warm water over those, too.

For right now, Bucky fought the urge to press his lips lightly to every mark and scar on Steve's body. Instead, he washed him, chaste as a doctor and twice as gentle. The water pooling at Steve's feet was the color of rust.

—

 **Семнадцать •** _ **seventeen**_

18.

If it was a clear enough night, you could see the barest hint of summer stars from Brighton Beach. Bucky knew this because he had taken a girl there, once, a year or so ago. He didn't remember her name. He figured that was unsurprising, because he hadn't been that into her, anyway. It was hard, when the only person he really wanted was a million kinds of impossible.

Steve turned seventeen today, and damn if Bucky wasn't going to go all-out. He knew a couple of guys that were going to shoot fireworks over the ocean from Coney Island, so they'd be able to see them all down the shore.

Bucky had told Steve a week ago to keep tonight clear, as if he'd really spend it with anyone else. "Whatever you say, pal," was the response, and Steve had flashed him a smile.

On the fourth, they took the train to Coney Island and got hotdogs, then walked the rest of the way to Brighton Beach.

They ambled along the jetty for a while, listening to the sounds of families opening Coke bottles and laughing, until they came across a place where the rocks dropped off onto another ledge of rocks, wide enough for them to sit without getting too wet. Bucky looked down, gauged whether or not he could shimmy down there with Steve in tow and get back up, and decided _Sure, why not?_ He turned to Steve, who was grinning. "I think we just found our seats," he said.

Bucky hopped over the ledge first, then offered a hand to Steve, who scoffed. "I can handle myself, Buck," and oh, didn't Bucky know that already.

The jetty was high enough on the shore side that if they sat down, they'd be completed shielded from view. The sun had started to set, so it was late enough that it was unlikely anyone else would be meandering along the jetty for the rest of the night. Between the rocks and the waves, for a moment, America was silent of life and Bucky and Steve had their own little world.

Before sitting down, Bucky grabbed two towels from the pack on his back and spread them haphazardly across the rocks. "So crabs won't come pokin' out," he said, "Like Ma did when me and Becca were kids." Steve had never been to the beach with Bucky's family before Bucky's dad lost his job, and that made Bucky ache with something other than nostalgia. Sometimes you spend so much time with someone else, you forget that you're a person without them, too.

When they settled in, the fireworks hadn't started yet, but Bucky could hear the sound of laughter carrying over the water and he knew it'd be soon. Gingerly, he took another towel out of the bag, a bottle and two mugs from his ma's cabinet wrapped in it. Steve smiled.

Bucky had gotten some Old Forester from the grocer after hours the day before, 'specially for this. Steve would never admit it, but Bucky knew he liked the warm, fuzzy feeling that settled over him after a couple drinks. Since the ban was lifted, alcohol was pretty easy to come by, and Mr. Adams owed Bucky anyway for helping carry in last week's delivery.

Just as he started to pour Steve's mug, the fireworks started. And God, they were breathtaking. Lit up the whole sky. "Look at 'em, Stevie, just for you," Bucky half-joked.

Steve punched him lightly in the arm. "Yeah, yeah, ya jerk," he said back, but he was still smiling.

The fireworks went on for the next hour or so, never losing their magic. There was too much light pollution to see any in the city, even if someone was able to figure out a place to shoot 'em off, and they hadn't been able to come out here on July fourth in years. Bucky was suddenly, innately giddy that he could spend this moment, have this memory, right now, with Steve.

After two mugs of the bourbon, Steve got that loose, relaxed air about him, stretching out on the rocks with his head in Bucky's lap. The waves made whooshing noises around them as Bucky slipped a hand into Steve's hair, idly playing with the golden strands.

"This is nice, Buck," Steve said, yawning. It was dark, no one could see them, and Bucky kept thinking _almost, almost._ "I believe this's the best birthday I've ever had."

Bucky couldn't see the blush high on Steve's cheeks, but he knew it was there. Bourbon always made Steve pink in the face, and Bucky counted himself a rich man to be able to conjure up that image from memory.

Bucky still had a hand gently carding through thin, blonde hair when he felt Steve sigh contentedly, his posture relaxing into sleep against Bucky's outstretched leg.

When he was sure Steve was out, wrung out from the day's activities, Bucky hesitantly swiped a thumb over his sleep-softened brow. "Stevie," he whispered, reverently, like a prayer. There were other things to say— _Happy birthday_ and _You're my favorite person in the world_ and _I'm crazy gone for you and I have been since day one_ —but he didn't, emotion making his whole chest freeze up, icy fingers curling tight around his throat.

 _Swallow it,_ he told himself, over and over and over.

—

 **Рассвет •** _ **daybreak**_

22.

There were things about Steve Rogers that no one on earth knew, save Bucky.

On Sundays, in the wee hours of the morning even before dawn curled her rosy fingers around their curtains, Steve woke up and made coffee mechanically, like clockwork. In their shared bedroom, Bucky could hear the other bed squeak when Steve got up, old wood and screws protesting the shifting of weight, even so little as his. Those mornings, Steve never got back into bed, but sat with his coffee at their little living room table (just an upturned box, really) reading the weekly post.

The first time Steve did this was just after they'd moved in. Bucky had made up both their beds before getting his own coffee, knowing Steve wouldn't fix his sheets if he didn't do it immediately after waking. Now, a year later, Bucky made Steve's bed every Sunday, smoothing his fingers over holes in the meager quilt standing in for a comforter. He never said as much, but sometimes when Bucky got out the bread for toast, maybe started to fry some eggs if it had been a good grocery week, Steve would grin up at him from his place in the living room, eyes shining over the top of his newspaper.

It was the kind of smile that made people go weak in the knees, Bucky thought. Smiles like that started wars. Bucky had been seeing it his whole life and it still made the bottom drop out of his stomach. It's a wonder Steve didn't have a different girl on his arm each night, with a smile like that.

As it was, though, Steve didn't go on many dates. In fact, the only dates he did go on were those Bucky roped him into. In high school, kids would think it was because no one wanted to go steady with a boy who might have an asthma attack from just lookin', if he liked the dame enough. And yeah, maybe that was part of it.

But Bucky knew better: Steve was happy as he was, taking art classes at the local community college and working at the convenience store down the block, saving up for a better education. As _they_ were, both holed up in their drafty box of an apartment, probably much too small for two grown men but even if they had been forced to occupy the same physical space, neither would have hardly minded. Right?

It hurt too much to consider anything else. That Steve didn't plan on living with Bucky for the rest of his life, that Steve eventually might want a wife and kids, a domestic little life in which "Uncle Bucky" drifted in and out of their suburban home once a week for dinner.

Society wouldn't be kind to two unmarried men living together in their later years, but who the fuck really cared? The only issue would be if _Steve_ didn't want to, and Bucky couldn't think about that.

Somewhere, in a dark corner of his mind he wasn't ready to explore, Bucky knew he loved Steve fiercely, in every imaginable way. He'd never say it out loud, but it lingered there, ever-present for as long as he can remember.

Little things like these Sunday daybreaks, making Steve's bed and Steve letting him make his bed, almost convinced Bucky that Steve really was exactly where he wanted to be. After all, the punk had never shied away from a fight; if Steve wasn't happy where he was, he wouldn't be there. And for that moment, Bucky thought, looking at the sun coming up behind his best friend from their apartment window, it was enough. The fact that no other living person has ever seen him in dewy light, half-asleep but determined to read the paper, tipping his coffee cup up to test its temperature against his lips but not yet to drink, was enough.

Bucky always, always told himself it was enough—phantom fingers reaching out to cup Steve's delicate jawbone, lips nearly aching with the impossible desire to kiss—even if it wasn't.

—

 **Печь •** _ **furnace**_

12.

Steve remembered nothing about the week he spent slipping away. Not the first time, not the last time, maybe the worst time. Bucky thought it had to have been the worst time. Bucky remembered it all. He tried to forget it, many times. He couldn't.

The unfortunate irony of fever is that it's exactly what you need until it isn't.

They'd just been so cold. December in New York was hard; December in New York was harder when you couldn't afford proper heating. Bucky had taken to sleeping down at Steve's most nights ever since the worst of the cold hit, bringing the blankets from his bed so they could double up and share body heat. Steve always complained about being babied, even if he did curl into Bucky every night. Even if sometimes they still woke up cold.

Now, Steve always walked around a little disoriented during winter, sickness perpetually at arm's length. So maybe one night he was a little more foggy than usual; maybe Mrs. Rogers couldn't afford much aspirin to ward off possible sickness, so Bucky just double-folded a couple of their blankets over Steve and held him a little tighter that night before falling asleep. As much as Bucky worried, he didn't think anything of it.

But the next morning Bucky woke up panting, sweat budding all over his body. Brain still sleep-addled and stuck on last week's Sunday school lesson, the first thought he had was that he must have really ticked off the king, to be thrown into the furnace like this. After a few hazy, confused seconds, he realized he was not, in fact, in a furnace, but Steve was burning up like one.

 _No,_ Bucky thought. _Not this._ He'd heard of kids less sickly than Steve passing in the night, bad enough fevers slipping up on them before they even knew it. But Steve was stronger than that; he had to be. He was. He was.

Bucky cupped Steve's face, sweat soaking his blonde hairline, dripping down his forehead. His shaky hands grabbed for a wrist, seeking a pulse: There, okay.

"Stevie, wake up," Bucky pleaded. "No, no, no, Stevie, come on."

When it became apparent that Steve wasn't waking up, Bucky went to get Mrs. Rogers, who came into the room, checked his nose for breath. She told Bucky to watch over Steve till she got back, and half an hour later (Bucky now lying at his side, Bucky gripping tightly to his hand) she bought in the doctor from down the hall. He said "pneumonia" and Mrs. Rogers didn't even flinch. Not once did she look worried. It gave Bucky strength.

For the first twenty-four hours, the only time Bucky left Steve's room was to go home to tell his ma what was happening and grab some clothes. Feverish son or not, Mrs. Rogers still had to work, so Bucky prepared everything to camp out at Steve's side for as long as he was needed, swapping out cool rags on his forehead, the back of his neck—anything to bring the fever down slowly.

Even though the pneumonia wasn't contagious with Steve not coughing, it was too hot for Bucky to sleep in the bed with him. Instead, that night Bucky made a crude pallet on the floor with a couple of their blankets, listening for any signs of conscious life.

The space between them was oppressive, and Bucky felt it like a raging ocean. In the quiet, the magnitude of his longing must have been hideously loud. _Mrs. Rogers will hear,_ Bucky thought, inanely. _The neighbors will hear. It's too loud. They'll take him away from me._ Unable to cope with the distance, Bucky curled back into bed, reaching for Steve like a blind man.

Shadow-ghosts covered the bedroom. Bucky didn't want to think about what would happen if Steve decided to become one of them. Maybe that's when they would take him away—when his body went still, when he became cold all over except for the one arm Bucky clung to, wrapped around it in the bed.

 _I would love him even then,_ Bucky thought, slotting himself against Steve's fever-shaken form. _I would love him cold, shivering or dead or encased in ice. Let them try to pry him from me. Don't they know they'll have to take me, too._

 _I'd follow him anywhere,_ Bucky thought. His love was still a selfish love, could still cut others if they got too close. _Yes, anywhere._

Steve's fever didn't break for days. But after it did, the waking up was quick to follow. When he finally came back—blinking his eyes painfully against the light, flicking his tongue out in an attempt to moisten his chapped lips—Bucky was the one to get his ma. She didn't look at him any differently, and the whole time he thought, _You can be quiet again, now. The coast is clear this time. No one's taking him away just yet._

—

 **Девять •** _ **nine**_

9.

He and Steve were walking home from school, the same as any other day, when Bucky first heard the word "queer" being used more severely than by a bunch of elementary kids tussling on the playground.

Bucky always walked on the inside of the sidewalk, Steve taking the side closest to the road, because sure, Bucky was young, but if he knew anything, it was how to protect Steve. And he sure as hell trusted oncoming traffic more than whatever lurked in Brooklyn's back alleys.

Turns out, Bucky had good right not to trust shady cut-through streets, not even the ones they passed going to school.

He heard the cruel laughter of teenagers before he was close enough to look down the alley. Then, when he was able to see, Bucky could make out a boy halfway down the block, folded on his knees, feet backed against the side of a building.

From what he could see from so far away, the boy—maybe high school-aged?—looked like hell. His face was bloody beyond recognition, and slowly he turned his head turned towards the ground, possibly praying, possibly just wanting to shield it from further blows. Four other boys stood around him in a semicircle. Bucky thought this must have been going on for a while.

"I bet you liked it when he fucked you, huh? Bet you just _begged_ for it." One of the bullies was wearing a green Army jacket, obviously the ringleader of this group. He accented his remark by violently grabbing the boy's hair and lifting him off his knees, then dropping him just as abruptly.

"N-no, no! Fellas, you got it wrong— _he_ kissed _me_ , I ain't no fairy, swear it!" The other boys laughed. Back on his knees, the blonde boy tried shifting so he could sit, but Green Jacket landed a foot right in his solar plexus and— _geeze,_ that must hurt—he went down again, this time landing fully prostrate in the gritty alleyway.

"Fuckin' queer, serves you right!"

They walked away from the scene calmly—Bucky trying to keep his cool, Steve miraculously oblivious—even though Bucky wanted nothing more than to grab Steve's hand and run. Because the kinds of fights Steve stumbled into—with Ricky after Steve caught him cheating on the multiplication quiz, or Ed for getting a little too handsy with one of the girls during recess—were _nothing_ compared to what was happening to this poor sap. This wasn't about right or wrong anymore; this was about something bigger, something Bucky didn't quite understand yet.

What he did understand, however, was that apparently, this is what happens to boys who kiss other boys, even if they're not _actually_ queer. Already, Bucky had his eyes on the pretty dames of his class, a'course—but he didn't want to kiss anyone the way he wanted to kiss Steve. The things his parents did, holding hands or resting against each other lying in bed, sharing the morning paper—those were the kind of things he wanted to do with Steve, just Steve.

Fact of the matter was, Bucky didn't want to be close to anyone the way he wanted to be close to Steve, and he didn't exactly know what that meant yet.

Suddenly, Bucky was fiercely glad Steve hadn't witnessed that scuffle while they walked home. If he had, they'd both be toast; Steve would have marched into that alley guns a'blazing, just like always. Then the older boys would have seen it on Bucky's face, undoubtedly; something this humongous was impossible to hide from people looking for it. And Steve, well—Steve just wouldn't have stood a chance against those guys, no matter how much he always wanted to be the hero.

Something tight and heavy, tugging down on his collarbones, slipped into the cavity of Bucky's chest as they walked. He didn't know it then, but this would soon become an ever-constant ache.

Steve ate supper at Bucky's house that night because it was Tuesday, and Tuesday was the day Bucky's dad got paid. Steve always ate at their house on payday, even if he did blush with gratitude the whole time.

After, Bucky walked Steve home (down a flight of steps and up the hallway), and Steve hugged him like always before slipping inside their apartment. Sarah waved hello from the doorway. Bucky waved back. Guilt, frosty and dense, settled inside his ribcage like a bowling ball. (Later: that would be constant, too.)

Going home, he tried not to think too much about the boy in the alley. Tried not to think about his words— _He kissed me!—_ and realized with a jolt that even if Steve wasn't broken like him, even if Steve didn't want to kiss him, Bucky was going to get both of them in trouble if he didn't bury this want, this… _thing_ that he felt whenever he caught Steve staring at him a little too long, whenever they play-fought on Bucky's bed, whenever he found Steve with another bloody lip, looking so meek, saying, _I had him on the ropes, Buck._

Yeah, Bucky would bury this, because if he knew anything, it was how to protect Steve—no matter the cost.

—

 **добросердечный •** _ **benign**_

14.

Bucky's ma had a lot of little sayings she'd toss to her kids, quick commands to keep them in check, phrases that rolled off the tongue so they'd remember them. Steve loved her He'd casually (if a little tongue-in-cheek) bring them into conversation, muttering _Courage can be both roaring and reserved_ or _Be gentle to gentleness,_ to which Bucky would roll his eyes.

The saying that really stuck with Bucky, though, was _Let your thoughts be wise and your heart benign._ For the longest time, he couldn't remember what "benign" meant and his ma would have to explain it to him whenever she said it. After a while, though, he learned. Basically the saying just meant be smart and tender. Okay, Bucky always thought, I can do that.

The problem was, Bucky wasn't always smart and tender. He got into hopeless fights more often than he stopped them, even if most of the time, it was in Steve's defense. Sometimes he lost his temper at stupid things. He wanted to kill anyone who laid a hand on Steve, and he wasn't sorry for it.

But every week the two of them didn't come home all scuffed-up from a fight, Bucky's ma gave him a quarter so he and Steve could get something sweet from the grocer. He was a real nice guy, let them have a little less than a pound of coconut macaroons for that quarter, and Bucky looked forward to that day all week.

Mrs. Barnes always gave them the benefit of the doubt, handing Bucky the quarter before he left on Friday so they could pick something up after school. Back at home, they'd give half of whatever it was to Becca and Rosie and eat the rest sitting on Bucky's bed.

This week they saw a bag of oranges (a whole fourteen of them, round and bright as they could be) and there wasn't even any deliberation, they just bought 'em. Becca squealed when Bucky tossed her the seven, and Rosie, still just six, said, "They're so colorful!"

When they went back to Bucky's room, Bucky sat against the headboard and Steve sat opposite, legs pretzeled underneath him. Steve bit into the orange peel so he could pick the skin off, which Bucky thought was gross, but he laughed. Steve's fingernails were too thin for him to claw at the peel like Bucky did, and he sure as hell wasn't gonna let Bucky do it for him.

It was cute, though, the way Steve looked up at Bucky after sinking his front teeth into the orange peel, through his eyelashes and long bangs. Bucky wished Steve'd look at him like that for the rest of their lives, maybe while Steve was sinking those teeth into him instead of fruit.

Bucky thought then about his ma's sayings. _Let your thoughts be wise and your heart benign._ He wasn't sure that was a wise thought to have, not about anyone, much less another fella. He watched juice from the orange run from Steve's lips to his chin. They laughed, savoring the slices.

Often Bucky caught himself imagining Steve's mouth, not just on his own, but all over his body: in the center of his palms, down his chest, at the pulse-point in his neck. Bucky wanted to do everything with him, everything he heard the older boys at school talking about and whatever else he didn't know. He wanted that, desperately, hopelessly. It wasn't the kind of want you're supposed to have for your best friend, but he did. Orange juice ran thick down his neck and Steve pushed up on his knees to wipe it away with his bare fingertips. They were sticky, concerningly cold, and perfect, just perfect.

Smart or dumb, good or bad, right or wrong, he wanted that touch. Craved it like a hunger, a mean, gnawing ache. And Steve, sitting back on his heels, holding his second orange cupped in his palms, fixing to peel it.

—

 **возвращение на родину •** _ **homecoming**_

26.

The night the captured soldiers of the 107th returned to camp, all proud grins and strong resilience, Steve didn't let Bucky sleep in the barracks with the other troops. Instead, he got a spare cot from the supply and set it up in his quarters, a private room because he's Captain America, after all, even if that meant something different now than it did before his crazy rescue mission.

Bucky was glad of this, because he didn't want to leave Steve for a minute, much less a whole night. It had been a year since he'd seen that blonde hair, those emotive eyes, and Bucky was still not one hundred percent sure he was real.

They set up the cot beside Steve's bed. Bucky stood beside it, feeling lost. He'd been able to save face in front of the guys as they marched back, in front of the camp when the finally returned, but here, in the quiet of Steve's room, sunset coming in the single window making all the wood glow orange—here, it was different. Here, it was a little harder to breathe without thinking about the weight of leather straps holding down his wrists, a cold needle in his neck.

Steve apparently caught on to the strange mood of the room, so when he reached out with a hesitant, "Buck?" Bucky turned and crushed himself to Steve's (now much broader, because he'd never been able to do this before) chest.

"Hey, hey, it's okay…" Steve cooed, rubbing a hand roughly up and down Bucky's back. How different it felt, Bucky mused, to be the comforted. How different than every time Steve needed him to be strong.

It took a couple minutes, and somewhere along the way Bucky belatedly realized he was crying, but then Steve maneuvered Bucky into the far side of his bed, back pressed up against the wall. The sheets felt like water over his belly where his shirt had ridden up, and the mattress was too soft, and it felt strange to lie on his side when he had been on his back in that chair for so long—but then Steve crawled in beside Bucky, slipping a foot between Bucky's ankles, and everything was calm.

Bucky couldn't touch Steve, not like this. He'd forget where he was. He'd be back in Brooklyn, too familiar now with the outline of Steve's body to be ashamed of holding it close at night. Even this new body, this larger one, Bucky felt like he already knew it. Of course his love would morph to accommodate Steve in whatever form he took.

Steve let the silence wrap around them before he spoke, because he knew Bucky just as intimately as Bucky knew Steve.

"You don't have to talk about it," Steve said, voice gentle. "But if you want to, I'm here for you, pal."

Bucky wanted to talk about it, really. He wanted to say _Do you know I envy the ones who died because they don't have to wonder anymore? Do you know I had nightmares of them doing the same thing to you, and now here you are—and they must not have been dreams at all, then._

"I'll talk to you about it another night," Bucky said. He could do that better, now, without choking up. "Thank you, Steve." They both knew Bucky was talking about more than just the offer to talk.

Steve smiled bitterly. Then he exhaled, like he was scared to say anything else. His mouth opened and shut before opening again.

"I just want you to know…" he began, trailing off. "Earlier, I heard the higher-ups talking, and they mentioned your name. I asked Peggy about it and she said they were discussing honorable discharge—mental health leave, if you wanted it." Everything in Bucky stilled, like his blood decided to spontaneously stop flowing.

Steve lay facing him on the small bed, their noses almost close enough to brush. For a long while, no one spoke.

Then: "You could do it, Buck, if you needed to. No one would blame you."

The offer was tempting. It was so cold out there—a different kind of cold than it had been in Brooklyn, when he and Steve would pile all the blankets they had on top of the bed and burrow underneath them, pressed together.

Then Bucky remembered going back to Brooklyn now meant going back without Steve, all those blankets to himself and the rest of the apartment barren. Even the thought of that was unacceptable.

In a feat of man, Bucky managed to keep the grief off his face. "Nah, I'm fine," he said. "Besides, it'd be too boring back there without your ugly mug." Steve's mouth quirked at that, but the joke still fell flat.

Steve sighed. "Boring might not be the worst thing for you. Go home, Bucky," he said, and it almost sounded like begging.

Bucky's fingers ached with the need to touch him, lying so close. The gap between them was now years wide. Bucky wanted to tell him that he was already home—that he was home the moment he saw Steve in that Hydra base, flesh and blood and alive, under his fingertips. "Wouldn't be home without you," he whispered, like a secret.

Steve's hand found Bucky's in the semi-darkness, and Bucky knew he was going to be cold for a long, long time.

—

 **Один •** _ **one**_

19.

Being a nurse in the Great Depression meant you worked twice as hard, twice as long, for half as much pay. But it also meant great insurance in the unfortunate event of terrible illness. Steve had always wondered if that's why God gave his ma such a sickly child, because He knew she could handle him. Little did Steve know that in the end, it would be him who was handling his ma.

Sarah Rogers spent the last half-year of her life in one of those hospital room. It followed that Steve—and, by extension, Bucky—spent six months, more frequently than not, also in that hospital room.

During the last days, Bucky was in and out of the hospital while Steve stayed with his ma overnight, and on one of these visits, while Steve was napping and Bucky was sitting in the little chair beside Sarah's bed wondering how everything had gotten so fucked up and what in God's name he was supposed to do next, she grabbed his hand.

"James," she said, voice hazy from medicine and fatigue. "Bucky. You'll take care of him?"

Bucky nodded solemnly. "Till I die, Mrs. Rogers. You have my word." Bucky made note of her smile, like the glint of sunshine off standing water. If he was an artist like Steve, that smile would have been something he'd want to paint in a million different colors, just so he could remember it every which way.

Not for the first time, Bucky wondered if she knew what he felt for Steve went beyond that of a friend, of a brother. Now, he wondered if that was why she was asking him, or if it was because there simply was no one else, in any capacity.

Either way, Bucky decided, it didn't matter. It didn't change nothing, not a thing.

"He's lucky to have you. He won't admit it, but he's always needed people." She managed a half-laugh. "Rather, he's always needed you." Her thumb stroked across the top of Bucky's knuckles, and he clasped her too-frail hand in both of his own.

Bucky smiled when he said, "Not half as much as I need him, ma'am." It was the last conversation he would ever have with her. A short time later, Steve woke up, and Bucky left them for the night with a promise to return in the morning. Just a couple hours later, when he did, he walked into Sarah's room to find Steve in the bed instead, curled in the fetal position with his back to the door.

Quick on the uptake, Bucky shut the door and immediately crawled in the bed behind him, clicking his body around Steve's like a puzzle piece, winding his arms so tightly around the fragile boy that had Steve been anyone else, Bucky was sure he'd snap him in half.

Steve cried and cried, stopping more often than Bucky was comfortable with to take breaths from his inhaler.

Bucky did the only thing he knew how, which was to hold Steve's entire body with his own, hooking their ankles together and settling his chin over Steve's shoulder, murmuring, "Breathe for me, Stevie, just breathe," into the quiet of every pause.

Some time later, a nurse came in to inform them regretfully that another patient needed the room and did they want to go to the waiting room instead? At this, the two boys untangled rather quickly, moving to sit with their legs over the edge of the bed, careful not to touch. Bucky was ready to deck her, but she hadn't said anything about the potentially compromising position in which she had witnessed them, two twenty-something men, so he just collected Sarah's things and took Steve home.

Then, "home" was a too-big apartment filled with the smell of Sarah's drugstore perfume and parsley. The first night, Steve slept in Sarah's other empty bed and Bucky made a pallet to the left of it, on the floor. They got ready for sleep in silence, both taking to their beds with a mutual hollowness words couldn't fill.

Hours later but sometime during the night—though Bucky was acutely aware that neither of them had slept yet—Steve broke. "Buck," he uttered, voice breaking like the upheaval of a gravel road, and flung his arm over the left side of the bed, reaching out.

"I'm right here, Stevie," Bucky assured him, and when he grabbed Steve's hand, it was as still and cold as a corpse's. Bucky moved to stand from his pallet and hold Steve again—

Steve squeezed his hand. "No, just… stay there. Okay? I'm okay. Just hold my hand, Buck. Please?" Bucky did. "It's so hard," Steve whispered. "I better get used to being alone, right? Without her, I'm just one now." Something constricted in Bucky, so he stroked the backs of Steve's knuckles with his thumb and pushed down the emotion that bubbled up from that action. He gripped Steve's hand tight, using it to pull himself up, and in one fluid motion, he scooped Steve's small body into his arms and brought him back down to the bed to rest half on top of Bucky and completely cocooned.

"Listen to me, Steven Grant Rogers, you are _never_ alone, you hear me? It is okay to miss her—hell, _please_ miss her, she deserves to be missed—but this does not mean you're alone." Bucky nuzzled his face behind Steve's right ear. "Till the end of the line," Bucky asserted, arms tightening. "Don't you forget that."

They stayed like that for who knows how long. Bucky vaguely thought it must have been getting lighter outside, just as Steve was drifting off. Gradually, he felt Steve's breathing slow until it leveled out into sleep, and only then did Bucky himself allow himself to cry.

—

 **грузовой вагон •** _ **freight car**_

28.

The only thing Bucky thought before falling—not _I'll never see my sisters again,_ or _how fitting it is that I am going to die cold, in the snow,_ or even _I have been reaching for him my entire life but this one time, I should have reached farther_ —was, _He will never know how immensely he is loved._ The only thing Bucky thought before falling was, _He will never know that he has always been the most loved boy on Earth._

Later, after the fall but before Hydra wiped his brain, Bucky took solace in the knowledge that Steve no longer needed Bucky to be _that_ loved. All of America now knew Steve's name. Bucky had died to Steve without ever saying it all, but he didn't need to, anymore. Now, Steve had an entire country who loved him—maybe not as much as Bucky, but certainly louder.

In the end—words still caught up in his frozen throat after years and years, unuttered declarations nearly cutting off his air because he _wanted_ , so badly—Bucky thought, _louder_ was what mattered more, anyway.

Selfishly, it was almost more of a pain than a comfort to realize, right before Zola cuffed him to another crude, pseudo-dental chair and stuck a cold, icepick-sized syringe into his neck: _Captain America will be fine._


End file.
